invisible Nordhausens

Walkshops with kids/teenagers for the East-German Children and youth festival “Wildwechsel”. September 2014

What kind of city is Nordhausen? Is it the city of laughter? The city of opera singing? The city of small bronze statues? The city of crooked walls? The circus city? The city of no words?Or is it the city of something completely else, the city of something only you know, because you are the only one who have noticed it -because it was invisible to other than yourself?

Actually, Nordhausen isn’t necessarily just one of these cities, it can be all of them -and even many more! Depending on who you ask, the answer to the question of what city Nordhausen is, you will get a range of different answers.

Participants of the walkshop were sent into the city to discover the different cities that Nordhausen consists of. On their way, the participants stumbled upon different urban interventions such as a message in a bottle in the city fountain, a secret love message on a park bench, a fake sign on a construction site. These interventions, made by zURBS, were to work as a facilitator for the participants to question and paying extra attention to their surroundings.From each city the participants discovered along their way, they collected an object as a souvenir. These objects were brought back to the walkshop-location where they were further developed through different exercises that made the participants reflect upon their own as well as other’s experiences of their city. Finally, all the material was archived in “the alternative city archive of Nordhausen”, displaying the many different ideas, perspectives, visions and thoughts the participants have for their city.